We wanted utopia. Just for four days, mind. We weren't going to be greedy about it. While Scottish cycling had been beautiful, it had also rained every day since we arrived and our belongings were varying in degrees of damp that ranged between very to completely. So, with advance planning that is quite uncharacteristic of the way we have travelled so far, we booked ourselves in for four nights on the Isle of Eigg. Four nights in a cabin with a real roof, and nothing to do but relax. Eigg became an ideal we clung to. When midges threatened to devour us, or one rain cloud too many led to a disagreement over a tin of chickpeas, we reassured one another: Everything will be ok once we were on Eigg.
We arrive on the island at midday on a Thursday to find locals in their waterproof fishing gear gathered around the only shop and cafe on the island. Already a number of them have cracked open beers. They are all friendly though, with everyone we speak to asking whether we are coming to the folk session the following evening. We do. That evening we join a group of four from Hong Kong and crash the local music night. I spend alot of time trying to convince Matt that he ought to play. 'No', he says. 'I'm too rusty.' A few beers later, I'm off learning why it is better to sing indie rock lyrics in English rather than Cantonese (it's a tonal language), when I hear the unmistakable dulcit of tones of M. Irons, who has stolen a guitar and is heartily singing Irish folk songs to the Scots.
Eigg is an odd little island, where everything seems cobbled together with whatever is to hand. We get talking to Eddie, a resident who seems to spend all his time driving back and forth along the island's 5km length in a rattly old truck or giving away wild blue-bell seeds that he ought to be selling. How he actually makes a living, I don't know, although as he points out, there is not much to spend your money on here except booze. Which alot of people do. He explains that the residents gained independence from their landlord only in 1999 when they finally clubbed together and, with the help of an anonymous benefactor, managed to purchase the island. It is now held by the island trust, which maintains the infrastructure - all wind/solar/water power, the seven child school. There is a lot of community pride, but there doesn't appear to be a lot of money to go around. Everyone seems to work three or more jobs. The girls in the cafe also work in the shop, and the one-night a week, 'four star' restaurant, and as volunteer environmental conservationists.
We spend alot of time reading, watching sheets of rain crash against the windows, but at times the sun comes out, giving us an opportunity to explore. We have leisurely breakfast with the Hong Kong crew: two vets, and documentary director and a hip couture fashion designer turned hip indie musician. We climb the Sgurr of Eigg, and to take a walk down to the 'massacre cave', where about 500 years ago, 300 islanders died after raiding clans lit a fire at the mouth of the cave in which they sheltered.... I started writing this blog entry this morning, and stopped to take advantage of a rare moment of Scottish sunshine and join Matt with a coffee and a newspaper. What unbelievable luxury. After seeing the front page photos of Syria, I'm not sure that I ought to write more on this topic. I was going to comment that is is a strange form of tourism, with most visitors to the island crawling into that cave on hands and knees, and afterwards shuddering and telling those yet to visit how eerie it was, how spooky. How 'interesting'. It's almost self-congratulatory, this empathy for the shadowy idea of people from 500 years ago. I'm not sure this kind of thing should ever be a tourist attraction. Perhaps it's not just macabre curiosity and there is some good in it. Perhaps it can stand as a lesson for future generations. But we are learning far too slowy.
